The advanced placement environmental class at Viewmont High School in Bountiful seems to be succeeding at making some of the school's best and brightest aware of the need for conservation.
Just so long as they don't become Commies.
RyLee Stowell says she and her fellow A.P. students, as a class project, created banners promoting "Buy Nothing Day," an environmental alternative to "Black Friday," which falls on the day after Thanksgiving and is touted by merchants as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season.
"Buy Nothing Day" encourages conservation rather than consumerism on that day.
But Stowell says when the students wanted to hang the banner on a balcony overlooking the commons area - where dances, programs and other student activities are advertised - they were told that the anti-consumer message would offend sponsors that promote their goods and services throughout the school.
Principal Scott Tennis, however, says the students were never censored. They were allowed to put their message on bulletin boards throughout the school and displayed their banner in the lunchroom.
But he was concerned that the students were unclear about what the message was trying to convey - if it was anti-capitalism, pro-socialism, or what?
What's unclear about the message being conveyed? It's a youthfully idealistic appeal to the spirit of humanity to pause what they rightfully see as materialistic and consumeristic insanity for just one day. That's fairly clear, even if the kids don't fully understand the implications of their message.
It would be really nice if more people who are 'in charge' could see through what we're doing to our schools these days, and into whose hands we're giving the system in the name of 'capitalism.'